WASHINGTON: The Pakistani public opinion has turned sharply and intensely against violent religious militants operating within the country, the US Congress was told.

The Pakistani military is also beginning to turn against the Taliban quite forcefully.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani elite are searching for a new national security doctrine that does not fuel internal revolution and does not impede economic and social progress.

These observations were made at a recent hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs convened to review the current US policy towards Afghanistan.

The debate on Afghanistan, however, also focussed on Pakistan with several lawmakers and witnesses pointing out that both countries faced the same enemy and that’s why it’s not possible to talk about one without discussing the other.

A transcript released on Monday said the committee’s chairman, Congressman Howard Berman, urged policy-makers to explore the possibility of using a combination of drone strikes and US Special Forces as an alternative to a troop surge in Afghanistan.

He said the scholars who appeared before the panel as witnesses should also try to determine what would be the impact of such a strategy on Pakistan.

Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican member of the panel, however, questioned the proposed strategy, saying that ‘a shift to a predominantly counter-terrorism campaign using air strikes and the like is clearly insufficient to beat back the threat to America’s interests that the Taliban and Al Qaeda present’.

Congressman Gary Ackerman, a Democrat and a co-chair of the Indian caucus on Capitol Hill, claimed that the Taliban, Al Qaeda and Pakistan terrorist groups were inter-related ‘under the same radical and violent division of Islam’.

Congressman Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, urged the need to prevent the use of Afghan territory to destabilise Pakistan.

Congressman Ron Paul, a Texas Republican, warned the US administration not to spread the Afghan war and not to go into Pakistan.

‘The American people don’t want it. We’re out of money. We can’t afford medical education here … it’s time to end the whole mess.’

Congressman Paul claimed that large majorities in both Pakistan and Afghanistan wanted the Americans to leave the region.

‘No matter what the reports are from … our puppet administration, most people want us out of there,’ he said. ‘We are seen as foreign occupiers, just as the Soviets were seen as foreign occupiers.’
 
Congressman Gerry Connelly, a Virginia Democrat, urged the policymakers also to consider the impact on Pakistan of a US retreat in Afghanistan.

Steve Coll, who chairs the New America Foundation, a US think-tank, told the panel he believed the Pakistani Army today was ‘divided and uncertain’ in its relations with the Taliban.

‘And it’s beginning to turn against them -- certainly against elements of them quite forcefully.’

The Pakistani public opinion, while it remained hostile to the United States, had of late turned ‘sharply and intensely against violent Islamist militant groups’ operating within Pakistan.

‘The Pakistan Army itself reeling as an institution from public skepticism is proving to be responsive to this change of public opinion,’ he added.

Moreover, the Army, civilian political leaders, landlords, business leaders, and Pakistani civil society had entered into a period of competition and open discourse over ‘how to think about the country’s national interests and how to extricate themselves from the Frankenstein-like problem of Islamic radicalism created by their historical security policies’.

Mr Coll noted that there’s a growing recognition in this discourse among Pakistani elites that ‘the country must find a new national security doctrine that does not fuel internal revolution and impede economic and social progress.’

The purpose of American policy towards this country, he said, should be to ‘create conditions within and around Pakistan with the progressive side of this argument among Pakistani elites to prevail over time.’

A Taliban insurgency that increasingly destabilised both Afghanistan and the border region with Pakistan would prevent Islamabad from integrating with other regional economies and move boldly towards a prosperous future.

‘Among other things, it would reinforce the sense of siege and encirclement that has shaped Pakistan’s support for Islamist proxy militias in the past.’

Frederick Kagan, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, warned that if the US failed in Afghanistan, Pakistan would not be able to solve its problems.

Mr Kagan noted that Pakistan had made remarkable progress in its fight against its own internal Taliban groups.

‘The last thing we want to do right now is undercut the resolve of the Pakistani government to go after an organisation that fundamentally threatens its stability and is linked with organisations that aim at us and threaten the stability of the entire region,’ he said.

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, a co-chair of the Pakistan caucus on the Hill, thanked Mr Kagan for acknowledging the ‘treasure, if you will, of the Pakistani people and what the Pakistani military is attempting to do’.